China’s world-wide arms sales

Press, 28 November 1984, Page 20

China’s world-wide arms sales

From ‘The Economist, London

If you need military weapons that are simple, sturdy and cheap, China’s new arms salesmen may have just the thing. They will not be high-tech arms. China has to buy these abroad: senior Chinese military men, from the Defence Minister down are constantly on the look out during trips to the West for the advanced military equipment needed to modernise China’s armed forces (the Chinese navy chief, Admiral Liu Huaqing, was window-shopping in Britain this month). But basic weapons are among China’s fastest-growing exports. According to the American Government’s arms control and disarmament agency, between 1981 and 1982 China jumped from tenth place among the world’s arms exporters to fifth.

A sales team that included representatives from the Pekingbased Norinco Corporation, a state-owned weapons manufacturer, made its first public assault on the international arms market in May this year, in Australia, when it took part in an exhibition of military equipment in Canberra. Last month the entrepreneurial Norinco Corportation brought its posters and sales pitch to the Defendory military exhibition in Greece. Much Chinese equipment is based on Soviet designs of the 1950 s and 1960 s vintage, although the Chinese clones are said to be of far higher quality than the original Russian equipment. West-

era military observers say that the prices of some of the Chinesemade weapons on offer from Norinco — among them armoured personel carriers, multiple rocketlaunchers, self-propellea guns and anti-tank missiles as well as rifles, grenades and ammunition — undercut those of Western manufacturers by up to 50 per cent. In Chairman Mao’s day China refused to trade in arms and dubbed those who did “merchants of death.” The turnabout reflects a desire to earn hard currency from arms, instead of giving them away, as China did up to the late 1970 s to Vietnam, Pakistan and other countries. It also reflects a shift since 1980 to a more pragmatic foreign policy. China will now sell to almost anybody with the cash to

buy — except, of course, its enemies. (Still, China had a hard lesson in how today’s friends can be tomorrow’s enemies: in 1979, Vietnam used its Chinese-made weapons in the border war between the two countries). China’s most lucrative new market is the Middle East, where ready cash feeds an insatiable appetite for weapons. China began selling spare parts, ammunition and some combat aircraft to Egypt after 1976, when Soviet military supplies dried up. More recently China has contracted to supply Egypt with six Romeo-class diesel Submarines (at least two of which have been delivered) and modernish F-6 and.

F-7 aircraft (China’s bootlegged version of the long-ago Soviet MiG-19 and the old but still effective MiG-21). However, it was the Iran-Iraq war that really boosted China’s arms sales to the region. According to some Western estimates, in the last three years or so China has sold arms to the Middle East worth $lO billion. The lion’s share, including T-69 tanks (an updated version of the Soviet T-62), artilleiy and ammnition, has gone to Iraq, with the rest mainly to Egypt Until earlier this year Chinese ammunition and F-7 aircraft were also finding their way to Iran via North Korea. China denies this trade took place, but has seemingly taken steps to end the double dealing. This four-year-old Gulf conflict also explains why Jordan has shot to fourth place, behind Hong Kong, Japan and the United States, among China’s major export partners. Figures from the International Monetary Fund show that China’s exports to Jordan grew from $9OO million in 1981 to more than $3 billion in 1983.

Preliminary figures for the first half of 1984 show a still-rising, trend. Much of this one-way trade (China’s imports from Jordan in 1983 amounted to only $55 million) flows through Jordan to Iraq. The arms trade also helps China get its hands on the new — or at least newer — technology it needs to modernise its own arms industry. In part-payment for the Chinese weapons they have received, both Egypt and Iraq are thought to have provided China with almost brand new versions of Soviet equipment including MiG-235, which the Chinese are happy to

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